The Roadside Hut

It doesn't take long for the sparks to fly between a construction worker and the co-owner of a small luncheonette, for a large, land grabbing corporation to move in with their threats and for two kidnappers with different intentions to make this otherwise lighthearted romance exciting.

Excerpt

Chuck Salerno crossed the two-lane road and allowed his motorcycle to roll to a stop next to one of the company’s pickup trucks. He glanced at the six cars in the parking lot, hung his helmet over the handlebars and combed the fingers of a hand through his wavy, collar length, black hair. Since it was only seven o’clock, there was plenty of time for breakfast.

As he approached the entrance to the seemingly new diner, the six-foot-tall, muscular man looked across the road and noticed a small luncheonette with no cars in front of it. “Maybe the food there isn’t any good,” he mumbled to himself and smiled at his own humor.

Stepping into the diner and glancing around, Chuck saw his boss and slowly walked toward him. “Morning, Ralph,” he said with a slightly cheerful intonation in his voice and sat next to him.

“What makes you so happy so early?” The husky man who was in his mid-fifties asked with a raspy voice. Not seeming to care how hot his coffee was, he curled a large hand around the mug and took a sip.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Chuck said, pretending to be even more cheerful than he felt just to tease him. With the fair weather they’d been getting, their job was moving along ahead of schedule. So what was there to complain about?

“What’ll it be, hon?” the waitress, who wore her red hair in a ponytail, asked as a gleam radiated from her eyes. She had begun checking Chuck out from the moment he had pulled into the parking lot and liked what she saw. Most of the men who came into the diner didn’t look half as good as he did.

Chuck politely smiled at the woman who appeared to be in her mid-thirties. “I’ll have a triple order of bacon cooked on the soft side, four eggs over light and—”

“The bacon is already cooked and it’s crisp, handsome,” the waitress interrupted with a tone in her voice that said customers had to take it or leave it. “And the eggs come out the way they come out.” She crossed her forearms on the edge of the counter and rested a pair of large breasts on them to make sure he saw them.

“You can’t make the bacon softer?” Chuck looked at her face for the first time and wondered what she looked like under all that makeup. It appeared that she’d been around the block a few times. He also wondered what kind of tips the truck drivers gave her…and what else they gave her.

“Nope, the boss isn’t as accommodating as I am,” she said sensuously and smiled to punctuate the intended offer. The provocative gleam in her eyes also made it clear what she’d meant.